Page 65 of Her Darkest Possession
"Even after everything that happened?" Amara asks softly.
"Well, not tothatpart," I clarify quickly. "But there's a simplicity to it that I miss. Making food on a tiny stove. Walking to the corner store for cheap coffee. Not having to worry that someone might try to kill me because of who I married."
I sigh, staring out the window and realizing I've been considering this more than I've admitted to myself. "And I think I'd like to go back to college. Not necessarily Columbia, but somewhere. I want to finish my degree."
"Really?" Amara perks up.
Her simple question catches me off guard. I open my mouth to say "of course" automatically, but stop myself.
Do I actually want that life back? Or am I just chasing ghosts?
I think about the woman who first walked into Columbia's gates years ago. Bright-eyed Amelia Taylor with her natural red hair and optimistic smile. The girl who believed education was her ticket to changing the world. Who thought hard work would be rewarded with fairness and justice.
That girl is gone.
In her place stands someone who's watched her husband sever a man's hand without flinching. Someone who felt power surgethrough her veins as she pronounced judgment on her mother-in-law. Someone who enjoyed it.
"I don't know," I admit quietly. "Part of me wonders if I'm just... hanging onto something because I think I should. Because normal people go to college and eat cheap dinners instead of ordering executions and exiles."
And that's the truth, isn't it? I'm not sure I could even sit in a classroom anymore, listening to professors talk about ethics and justice when I know what my version of justice feels like. When I've tasted it.
And that's when it really hits me with startling clarity. This longing for my old life isn't a real desire. It's another form of guilt. Another form of fear.
Both of them fundamentally about embracing who I'm becoming.
Maybe I don't want normal anymore. Maybe what I really want is to stop pretending I'm still that girl who left for Columbia believing the world was fundamentally fair.
But then again…
Maybe this isn't an either-or situation. Maybe I don't have to choose between who I was and who I'm becoming.
I've been acting like there's an Amelia—the college girl with dreams—and then there's Indigo—Anatoly's wife who commands life and death. Like they can't exist together.
But what if they can? What if going back to college isn't about pretending the last two years didn't happen? What if it's about refusing to let those bastards take one more thing from me?
Svetlana's words from my first day here echo in my mind: "The past is carved in stone. It cannot be changed, only worn away. And even then, the worn marks will remind you of what happened. When you wish that the past never happened, you breathe power into it. Only by accepting that it has happened and resolving to never let it drag you back down into its depth, will you ever triumph over it."
Maybe that's exactly what I need. Maybe this desire for the ordinary is my way to balance everything. To be both Amelia and Indigo.
Both the college girl and the bratva queen.
"Yeah." Slowly, I nod, feeling more certain than before. "I think I do want to go back. That way, it'll feel like all those years meant something. Like I didn't just give up on that part of myself completely."
Amara's eyes light up. "Maybe Anatoly can help with that," she suggests, her voice brightening with excitement. "He's got connections everywhere, right? I bet he could get you into any school you wanted."
I let out a small laugh. "What happened to making it on your own merits? Weren't you just saying how important that was to you?"
Amara rolls her eyes dramatically. "That's different.Ihaven't gotten into Columbia yet.Youalready did that once. You've got nothing to prove now, Miels. You already showed the world you could get in based on your brains and hard work."
I shake my head, but I can't help smiling at her logic.
"And besides," she continues, warming to her argument. "What's the point of marrying an all-powerful bratva pakhan if you can't use him to help you feel just a little bit ordinary?"
That catches me off guard. I hadn't thought about it that way before. The irony isn't lost on m: using Anatoly's extraordinary power and influence to help me achieve something as mundane as finishing my degree.
"You know," I say slowly, "you might actually have a point there."
Amara grins triumphantly. "Of course I do. Talk to him about it."
